The Woman In Red
by Unidentifiable Alley-Cat
Summary: A young woman is found by the Doctor and Amy in Cardiff-but Earth isn't where she's from. Can they take her home or will she become the third member of the Tardis' occupants?
1. Chapter 1

**Authors Note: Umm… So hey! This is my first ever story and so if its rubbish I am really sorry! I always have stories zooming round my head so I thought, might as well put some on here =P.**

**I have nooo idea where this story is even headed so any ideas/comments would be sooo greatly appreciated! I don't even know if I want to make it into a romance or, to be honest, what species my OC is! Terrible I know… So know you know how badly I need help reviews would be a Godsend! I think that's it for now so I hope you enjoy it! =)**

Oh and sadly i don't own Doctor Who or any of its characters =(. I do own Sarah, whatever storylines I come up with and a mini fridge though! =) It's blue and very chilly =D

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Scarlet heels in her right hand, the woman ran as fast as her athletic legs could carry her, grinning and laughing as her bare feet slapped the Cardiff Centre cement. The events of the previous hour replayed in her head and she couldn't help but chuckle louder, regardless of the nervous looking locals surrounding her. Her happiness was short lived, however, as the very person she was trying to distance herself from rounded the corner and spotted her in an instant. She turned around and smirked, pumping her arms and legs harder. She had never been one to pass up a challenge.

The Doctor leaned casually against the black railing, looking up slightly at the magnificent water feature and licking absentmindedly at a 99, which had, oddly to him, cost £1.29. "I'll never truly understand you humans," he directed his pricing confusion at no one in particular and so Amy, his brilliant and completely bored companion chose to ignore it. She held her own ice cream lightly in her hand and looked up at the cloudy weather. _Not nearly sunny enough for ice cream_ she thought to herself, sighing.

"So, why are we here again?" Her strong accent questioned the tall and peculiarly dressed man to her right.

"We've been through this," The Doctor sighed, taking his eyes momentarily from a passing couple arguing about whether or not 'jeggins' were suitable to wear to a job interview to look at Amy. "There has been some odd rift activity for the past few months and we need to make sure that… well that..." He struggled to find the right words.

"That there aren't any enormous, bug eyed, long clawed green monsters roaming the streets of Cardiff?" She finished for him warily, thinking that this whole trip was unnecessary and about how much she would rather be in Rome or Paris. Even London wouldn't go down badly-the Tardis did have its own huge closet but you can't beat a bit of retail therapy every now and then…

The Doctor interrupted her train of thought by adding, "Clearly you've never met the Slitheen." He smiled fondly at the memory of beating the Slitheen at 10 Downing Street and then again in the very city they were visiting.

It was in that moment that he noticed a young woman, of approximately 21 years of age, round a corner to his left and sprint in his direction. The woman had a fitted red dress on and was clutching a pair of awfully high heels in her hand. She was grinning from ear to ear and, brushing her long, brown hair out of her face, she turned to see a burly looking security guard, dressed entirely in black, follow some distance behind her. The thick set man ran at a surprising speed but the woman he was pursuing didn't seem at all fazed by him. As she neared, the Doctor noticed a gleam in her eye-she was enjoying it! He began to smile to himself, recognising the love of adventure and danger that covered the girls face. The girl in red noticed Amy and the Doctor's following gaze and as she neared them she slowed to a stop, bending over double and gasping for air. "I'm getting too old for this…" The girl complained, finally standing upright and beaming at the pair in front of her.

The Doctor beamed back while Amy just stood looking bemused, unsure of how to react to her comment and glancing at one and then the other cautiously.

"I'm Sarah," The girl in red introduced, swapping the shoes to her left hand and shaking Amy and then the Doctors' hands briefly but forcefully, "you couldn't do me a huge favour and look after these for me could you?"  
She thrust the shoes at the Doctor, who had to quickly juggle the heels and his half eaten ice cream to avoid dropping it, and glanced quickly toward the large man bowling towards her. Realising that he was gaining on her fast she turned back to face them. Knowing that a short encounter like this might not be enough to stop the man chasing her she brought the Doctor and Amy into a tight hug and whispered "Sorry about this!" She broke away from the embrace, aimed a look of gratitude towards the time travellers and hoped that the guard was close enough to notice it-it was the only way that her quickly thought out plan would work. She gently planted her lips on the Doctors, holding the side of his face softly with her left hand. Then, suddenly and without warning, she ran off again at the same staggering speed. The Doctors eyebrows disappeared behind his black mop of hair and he looked at Amy, his mouth agape and his eyes slightly glazed over. He barely noticed the man who appeared to have been chasing Sarah stagger slowly to a halt in front of them.

"Do you know her?" He asked, his thick, Welsh accent making it difficult for Amy to understand.

"No, she just came over to us then," Amy replied, looking sideways at the doctor and realising that he still hasn't fully recovered from the kiss.

The man laughed a humourless laugh and shook his head "You don't expect me to believe that do you? She was all over the pair of you!" He said, folding his thick arms across his chest.

The Doctor snapped back to the conversation and he said, "It's true-we don't know her."

The man looked between Amy and the Doctor and scowled viciously at them, "That _girl_ just stole about £40, 000 worth of diamonds, gave you her shoes and ran off and you're expecting me to believe that you have _never_ seen her before until now?"

"Yep, that would be about right. Oh, and about the shoes, they do look awfully uncomfortable to run in, wouldn't you say? That's probably why she asked me to mind them for her." The Doctor looked towards the man with an abnormally large muscle-to-body weight ratio for agreement but when he realised that he wasn't likely to get it he turned his head left to look at Amy. She shrugged lightly.

Getting away from aliens? No Problem.

Finding her way off of a deserted, unknown planet? No sweat!

Being questioned by an obscenely muscled, angry looking security guard for a theft worth of a long while behind bars? This made her a little nervous.

Being on Wanted posters across the Galaxy was all well and good but on Earth and, particularly, in Britain was not something she would enjoy.

"Either you tell me the truth or I'll arrest the pair of you!" The guard said, clearly getting impatient with the fiery red-head and kooky bow-tie wearing man. "I don't have time for this!"

"Ah, you see Amy, classic example of be careful what you wish for; he's not exactly alien but notice the similarities with the Judoon?" The Doctor scanned the security guard nervously, recognising the lack of neck and thick set upper body. Amy frowned.

"Darn," he said to her, realising she had no idea what he was talking about, "wrong companion?"

She nodded lightly and whispered, "So what do we do?"

He turned to face her, grinning widely and simply stated, "We run!"  
The Doctor grasped Amy's hand and the two of them took off, leaving the guard to think of a suitable excuse to tell his boss…

Amy slumped down into the captain's seat of the Tardis. She kept thinking of the Doctors shocked face when the girl named Sarah had kissed him and couldn't help but smirk. _So it's not just with me he's unable to process affection _she thought chuckling. She looked up at said man to see him working busily with a twisting knob and leaver, glancing up every now and then to scan the screen in front of him. He frowned in concentration and shook his head, verbalising his confusion with, "No…"

"Something wrong?" Amy asked, holding her nails up to the light and trying her best to show that she would rather be anywhere else. _I don't think he's ever going to realise that Cardiff isn't exactly my first choice of holiday destination._

The Doctor ignored her, or, more likely didn't even notice her efforts, and squinted at the odd symbols on the suspended screen.  
"The Tardis is telling me that numerous objects have been flying haphazardly through the rift and yet there are no signals, no sign of any alien matter…" The Doctor was stopped by a sudden beeping and again stared at the monitor. A small red light was flashing on and off and moving steadily. Amy assumed that the monitor was showing a map and she jumped off her seat to go and stand hopefully next to the Doctor.

"So this is good, yes? We get to go and fight some bad guy aliens now?"

The Doctor grinned at her and said, "Not quite a bad _guy_".

The screen which had once held the picture of an abstract map and the red flashing light now changed to show a crowded town square. Amy recognised it as the area as where she and the Doctor had been standing not long ago. The view of the square zoomed into a crowd of lunch time shoppers and then tracked one particular woman. Her red dress had gone but her hair and face made her easily identifiable. Sarah now wore dark, indigo jeans and a worn, loose fitting leather jacket.

"Seems we've already met one of our alien drop ins!" The Doctor made his way swiftly to the Tardis door followed closely by, for the first time that day, an excited Amy Pond.

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**Please tell me it wasn't too bad =P. If it was I would love criticism to help me improve as I know that I'm no Shakespeare =P. Oh and if the Doctor and Amy sound too OOC I would love to know as I'm probably making them all unbelievable he hee.**

**I would also like to say my Geography is atrocious, as is my spelling, and so anything I do wrong i'll apologise for now =P. **

**I've finally finished my GCSE's (PRAISE THE LORDD) and so i'll have a craazzzy amount of time off and will probably not take to long to update... hopefully...**

**Anyways thanks so much for reading and I hope that you enjoyed it even just a little bit! =) **

**Alley-Cat x x x**


	2. Chapter 2

**Authers Note: Yay! So this is chapter 2! I'm not sure how the first one went down but hell, here's the second =P  
And I know this is really pathetic but I was actually considering giving up for a while =O. I couldn't think of anything to write (and I still can't really so my chapters will be coming in incredably slowly). That's why anything that you want to add, even if it's just to say that my character isn't believable or if i'm not writing the Doctor or Amy correctly pleasee let me know! It would be a major help =). **

**So thar you go, hope you enjoy this chapter as it caused me lotsa depression when thinking what to write (which oddly all went away when I started actually writing it-does that often happen? =S he hee). Peace Out!**

**Doctor Who has never and will never belong to me. Boo. I don't even own any chewing gum anymore. Dayumm. **

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Sarah crouched down low to the cobbled road, examining the perfectly cubed box in front of her. She brought a thumb to her mouth and nibbled her already short nail, something she did when she was particularly nervous.

And now was perhaps the most nervous she'd been in the last 3 months of living on this small, and yet completely charming, planet, for the box lying harmlessly in front of her wasn't just a box.

The ornate design of the box showed that it was obviously alien in origin. Made of a solid metal, dirty bronze in colour, the box's lines and symbols appeared to be some sort of a language that Sarah was unable to make it out.

She heard a low noise to her right and quickly looked up to look for its source but by this time it had already stopped and was out of her eyeline.

Turning back to the current crisis, she cautiously reached out a sole hand and hesitated for a second, before touching the cool object lightly with her index finger.

The box shifted slightly, emitting a shallow humming noise. Sarah traced a few of the intricate lines before it hissed lightly, opening up in a complicated way to reveal a complex jumble of multicoloured wiring. In the centre of the complex device was a small black container.

_This can't be good…_Sarah thought glumly to herself.

She reached down to her left to pick up a pocket-sized silver device with a small screen that looked like an enlarged iPod. She extended the aerial and moved it slowly across the net of the unusual object.

She regretted this almost instantly as all of a sudden the box began beeping viciously and the black container flashed with a variety of different symbols, some that she recognised, others that were, well, alien to her, until it finally settled on what she noticed instantly to be Earth numbers.

Starting at 100, the bright red numbers began to slowly click and change, smaller and smaller with each second.

95.

94.

93.

"Oh crap…" She scolded herself before quickly busying herself with one of the wires.

The Doctor made his way forward through the now crowded city centre, seemingly reacting to the varying pitch changes in his sonic screwdriver's relentless buzzing.

Amy bounded after him, unable to keep the happiness from her face.

"So! Why is she here? Presumably not by choice," she quizzed the Doctor as they made their way in what she assumed was the direction of the alien, "And if she's not human, what is she?"

The Doctor met her inquisitive glance for a second before turning back in the direction of his sonic-ing and replying with, "Well, she must have fallen through the rift and gotten stuck here. Although she did look pretty comfortable with her life here. Maybe she doesn't particularly want to go back. Or maybe she just didn't have the right tools to get back home… I suppose that's more likely due to the primitive technology this planet has-"

"Hey!" Amy interrupted frowning in the Doctor's direction and stopping his thoughts.

"And to answer your second question," the Doctor started, ignoring Amy's outburst and still concentrating intently on the humming noise, "She definitely isn't human. As to what she actually is, ill have to find out when we meet her again."

The pair rounded a corner to a very secluded area which, at first glance, appeared to be empty. On closer inspection, however, Amy noticed the woman, Sarah; she seemed to recall her name was, hunched low over a small metallic box.

Just in time, Amy pulled the Doctor behind a wall as Sarah had looked in their direction, stopping the Sonic Screwdriver's humming as she did so.

Peeking around the corner they noticed Sarah tentatively reaching out to the box and Amy looked at the Doctor puzzled, "what's she doing?"

"I'm not sure…" The Doctor responded frowning and in silence, the two watched as the object in front of Sarah unfolded carefully. The Doctor squinted slightly as Sarah picked up something that he couldn't quite make out.

A sudden beeping alarmed both Amy and the Doctor, the latter of which had begun to make his way swiftly towards Sarah.

Amy heard Sarah mutter something and followed the Doctor to her side, crouching down next to the object which had begun counting down in large, teasing, red numbers. "I take it this isn't good."

Sarah jumped slightly, only just realising that they were here. "Oh! Um, don't worry it's nothing, please just carry on with what you were doing," she said nervously and trying to reassure them she smiled, or more grimaced, at them. In that moment she realised who the people in front of her were and forget the imminent problem.

"It's you!" She grinned, "Hi! Sorry about earlier but you know what it's like. Actually, you probably don't…"

Amy smiled at how right she was, "No, we're the same."

Sarah frowned slightly at the comment but quickly realised that the time was counting down rapidly. She got swiftly to her feet and turned them round, pushing them back the way they had come from and saying "It was great to meet you again but I must insist that you both move away from here, it's very dangerous."

The Doctor and Amy smirked sideways at each other before asking, "So who are you then?"

Sarah stopped, thinking silently before as convincingly as she could muster, saying "Firework… operator! Yeah, there's gonna be a big display tonight and, uh, I'm just setting up some fireworks for later on! So come back later at 7 and, um, prepare to be amazed!" She smiled at the two in front of her, thoroughly pleased with herself for making up the lie at such short notice.

Incredibly conscious of the time, Sarah hurried back to the device.

28.

27.

26.

The brunette grimaced at the lack of time and, perhaps more importantly, lack of plan. She'd never come across this technology before, how was she supposed to defuse this before the timer reached zero?

"Now, I'm no expert but that certainly doesn't look much like a firework to me." The Doctor commented, kneeling down next to Sarah.

"Wow, this is truly excellent work; liquid urillium! This stuff's like gold dust…" He continued to fuss over the deadly device just inches away from him as though it wasn't about to blow him to pieces as Sarah frowned opened mouthed at him.

"Um… Who are you?" She managed to say, "And can you stop this?"

The Doctor looked up at her, hurt. "'Can I stop this?'" He repeated, "Of course I can stop this!"

Amy reappeared in between the Doctor and Sarah and, looking to her right at the only other woman in the vicinity, said "Don't worry about him, he just wants everyone to know how clever he is"

She patted him on the head and he grinned widely at her.

"We don't have long left you know…" Sarah reminded, still confused about what was happening but staying alert to the fact that they were running swiftly out of time.

The Doctor frowned and opened his mouth to comment back but was stopped by Amy's hand and remark of, "perhaps we would be better dealing with the problem at hand before getting to know each other better. Okay Doctor?"

He turned back to the bomb still frowning as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver.

As he corrected the frequency, Sarah glanced anxiously at the timer. Only 6 seconds left and Sarah began to wonder if this "Doctor" really was capable of saving them. He certainly didn't look up to much but, as she knew from previous experience, looks can be deceiving…

"Ah hah!" The Doctor exclaimed, causing Sarah to jump and bite her nail again.

She watched the Doctor hold his strange, and certainly not human, device to the bomb and hold down a button, causing the object to hum and light up.

3.

2.

1.

And then it stopped.

It stopped at 1!

Sarah had no idea how he had done it, but this "Doctor" had managed to stop the bomb which, even to her inferior knowledge of the technology, would clearly have done a huge amount of damage to the country's capitol.

She flopped down to the ground, sighing loudly.

"Thanks." Sarah said smiling, "Lucky that you guys showed up, I didn't have a clue what to do."

The Doctor grinned at the praise.

"What was that?" Sarah asked, referring to the device that the Doctor had used to stop the bomb.

"Ah" My sonic screwdriver!" He beamed, holding it up in a somewhat worshipping fashion.

Sarah scrunched up her face and said, "Why would you want a sonic screwdriver? What's wrong with an ordinary one?"

"Well what's wrong with a sonic one?" The Doctor countered defensively-why did people just not get his sonic screwdriver? It had saved thousands-no probably millions!-of lives over the years and yet still people mocked it!

Shaking her head and picking up her supposedly helpful device, she rose to her feet curious to know more about the two strangers that she had met today.

"So you're not human?" Sarah questioned, already confident she knew the answer.

"I am!" Amy piped up, raising a hand, then, jerking the same hand in the Doctor's direction, she added, "He isn't."

"And it seems you aren't either" the Doctor continued, "You fell through the rift. Need a lift home?"

Sarah's once sparkling eyes dimmed and became sorrowful. She looked at the ground and said, "No, that's okay. I'm at home here now."

She smiled slightly at the two, though the movement didn't spread across her whole face.

Amy, noticing that Sarah didn't want to talk about that subject anymore, moved on, offering, "Well, why don't you come back to the Tardis for a while, just until we figure out a way of stopping the objects from falling through the rift."

"The Tardis?"

"Yeah, it's my space ship" the Doctor grinned, "It can travel through time too"

Sarah's head whipped up and the sparkle returned to her eyes, "You have a ship?" she asked him excitedly. "No way! Where would you park it in a place like this?"

The Doctor chuckled, "Oh, you'd be surprised."

He picked up the defused bomb and headed in the direction of his ship.

"Oh and, for the record," he started as they walked in comfortable chatter, "you're a terrible liar. Firework display?"

"I am not! I was just… under pressure! And you weren't exactly making it easy for me." Sarah countered and, as an afterthought, added, "And where are my red shoes?"

Amy laughed as she recalled the day's previous events and Sarah could have sworn that she saw the Doctor's ears turn slightly pink.

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**So, ya! Hope you liked it and fingers crossed I dont take months to update =P**

**Im going on holiday for 2 weeks tomorrow (bring on florida and all the happy, happy sunshinee! =D) so won't be updating for quite a while, but hopefully the sun and dizzying rides will fill me with inspiration =P. **

**Thanks to JWL for your review it was a really happy moment to get my first ever review! Hah! Hope your final exams went well =)**

**Thanks soo much for reading!**

**Alley-Cat x x x**


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